Books like Crime and Punishment make me genuinely despair that Americans don't read anymore. When I was in high school, I was a disaffected youth; didn't apply myself, didn't feel I had a real identity, and was just perpetually angry about something I could never put my finger on. As a side note, I think young men experience this all over American suburbs and today it's called "the male loneliness epidemic".
Then a friend of mine handed me a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky and said "Here, read. Open your mind". My interaction with reading at that moment in time was books read in school and Harry Potter. The book I was handed was Notes from Underground. I can't profess to have understood the book well, but I could resonate with the anger, the helplessness, the desire to both hide and shine. I was obsessed with Dostoevsky from that point forward.
I next read Crime and Punishment, and while I enjoyed it, I unfortunately took all the wrong lessons. Raskolnikov seemed cool. I liked the idea of being a vain, smart guy.
(Hope everyone I knew at that time can forgive me for being insufferable, it was high school. I've read a lot since then, and that's far from who I am today.)
At any rate, Crime and Punishment is just a parade of men who are massive pieces of shit., socially isolated men. There are womanizers, charlatans, life-ruining alcoholic fathers, murderers, and pedophiles. All of them leaving behind a trail of disabused women. And leading the parade is Raskolnikov, a murderer who fancies himself Napoleon because he killed an old pawnbroker and her sister.
In the context of the modern Male Loneliness epidemic, it's hard to really square whether it's comforting that being consumed by vice and anger in Men is an age-old problem or even more concerning. Dostoevsky is pretty hostile to the idea that one's environment causes moral decay (the character who holds this view, Lebeziantnikov, is hilariously lampooned, although despite his foolishness might actually be one of the few decent guys in the novel), he seems to believe there is something dark in the heart of every man that needs taming.
And while I think he's wrong, his characters are painted with such vivid dimensions in order to demonstrate his point, I almost don't care. From the way they look, their mannerisms, their convictions, or lack of, it's so well constructed and entertaining. The clashes the characters have are brutally real; they oscillate between awkward and painful to heartwarming and life-affirming.
Also, the book is funny as hell. It's witty and clever and Dostoevsky can stick it to his constructed assholes in satisfying ways that avoids cartoonishness.
I would explain plot elements to my wife, and she coined the phrase "the real house guys of St. Petersburg". It really is that fun. All of the above is why I think it is tragic that classics like this, with books in general, have fallen out of style. There really is a rich experience and modern parallels to be seen here. If a pissed off high school me hadn't resonated with the deep anger in this book and make me seek out social interaction I'd be a totally different man. I wish more young people could experience the same.
